Saving Johnny Gage
by M'LissyLou
Summary: A new person in Johnny's life sees that he needs saving. This is my first fan fic! I hope you enjoy it. Rated T to be safe. No foul language, no sex (except a couple of very brief mentions of it having taken place), violence talked about but not depicted, but some of it still may not be for kids.
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: The Lakota words in this chapter are from an online Lakota dictionary. I have no idea if they are right or not.

Chapter 1

No one was late or even pushing it that morning. All six men of A-shift had changed into their uniforms and were sipping coffee when Captain Stanley stood to begin roll call, deciding to do it right there in the kitchen since the men were already gathered. He didn't get to finish, but it wasn't the klaxons that interrupted him. It was the four people who rang the call bell and walked into the station just as Hank was opening his mouth to assign chores.

The first three who walked in did not command nearly the attention of the fourth, and all six stared at him. Johnny's reaction was strongest. He leapt to his feet, gasping, and knocking over his chair, startling the others all the more. The visitor was an old man, obviously Native American, with long gray hair in two braids, decorated with a beaded headband. He wore jeans, a flannel shirt, and a western tie with turquoise and white beading, as opposed to the other three people, who were dressed in business suits. Two were women and they, too, were dressed in no-nonsense business attire.

The first man who walked in, at whom no one was looking, spoke. "Captain, we are looking for—" but he got no further, and sighed with some irritation as he realized that no one was paying attention to him yet.

"Ahiyu Igmuthanka! Chases Cougar!" The Indian said, awestruck, though no one had any idea why he should be awestruck at the sight of Johnny, at whom he was staring with as much astonishment as was in the eyes of the fireman who stared back at him. "It really _is_ you!"

"M-Mr. White Owl," Johnny replied, transfixed, and extended his right hand to shake with the old man.

"I take it you two know each other," Cap said, looking at Johnny and the elderly Indian man, who still stared at each other, seemingly to the exclusion of everyone else in the room.

"_Chases Cougar_?" Chet exclaimed. "Johnny, did he just call you—"

"Wait a minute," Cap said suddenly. "What's going on?" His eyes left the Indian in even more surprise as he realized that the first man and the woman next to him were showing him FBI badges. It had taken a second for that to sink in since the entire group was so fascinated by the elderly Indian and Johnny and their reaction to each other.

Now the leader had at least the captain's attention, but he was no longer interested in the captain. One of his temporary companions had already identified the person he wanted. He turned to Johnny. "I take it you are John Gage?" he asked, turning his badge so Johnny could see it. His partner did the same.

Marco also saw the badges. "Has Gage _done_ something?" he asked incredulously.

The man ignored the question and spoke only to Johnny. "Mr. Gage, we have some questions for you."

"Why?" Johnny looked at the badge, but his eyes went immediately back to the old man. It was obvious to everyone in the room that the man who had called him "Chases Cougar" was more an astonishment to him even than the FBI wanting to ask him questions. "I haven't done anything."

"No, you haven't, but we believe you have knowledge that will help us to find someone who did," his partner answered, pocketing her badge.

"Sure," Johnny said, shrugging his shoulders. "I'll help however I can. But—but Mr. White Owl? Why are you here? And—" he turned to the second woman, a fortyish, overweight woman with short dark hair who had so far stood silently, "who are you?"

"I'm here to see for myself, and to bring word back," Mr. White Owl replied enigmatically.

The woman answered as well, "My name is Delores Fenway. I'm a social worker.

"Social worker?" Johnny was confused.

"Mr. Gage." the FBI man was getting impatient. "Is there someplace we can all go and talk?"

"You could use my office," Cap answered.

"How about outside?" Johnny suggested. "There's a picnic table out back where we can sit." This would make it impossible for any of the others to eavesdrop, as Johnny knew that at least Chet, Mike, and Marco would want to do. The presence of Wilbur White Owl made him believe that whatever the FBI wanted with him, it was not going to be something he'd want the others to hear. The last time he'd seen the man, things were happening that afterward he had kept securely locked inside himself. In the ten years that had passed, he had only brought up the subject once, and not even his aunt knew anything about it.

Chet jumped right in before they could go outside, as Johnny knew that he would. "Where do you know Johnny from, Mr. White Owl? Are you from the same reservation?"

"Yes," the old man replied, "But I haven't seen him since he left ten years ago." He turned to Johnny. "Your mother is well, but has not smiled since the day you left. Why did Ellis say what he did about you?"

"I don't know what Ellis said, Mr. White Owl."

The old man nodded. "Then it was his idea, not yours. I suspected as much. And I don't think you want me to tell you right now in front of your co-workers what it was."

"No, I don't. Mr. White Owl, after I left I was able to find my father's family and I stayed with an aunt and uncle until I was finished high school. But they don't know anything about what happened on the rez." Johnny indicated Roy. "And he's my best friend and I've never told him about it, either."

Roy was confused. "Are you guys here to talk to him about something that happened _ten years ago_? He would have been a minor then!"

Both FBI agents shook their heads. "Not at all." The woman said. "Our case is a new one."

"Then why are you being so closed-mouthed, Johnny?" Chet asked.

Mr. White Owl answered before Johnny could. "Because he saw _me_."

Johnny led the group of visitors outside. Mike spoke his question to the rest of the guys watching them go. "What I'd like to know is this: why, if they were all four looking for Johnny, was that last guy as shocked to see him as Johnny was to see _him_?"


	2. Chapter 2

Author's note: This story is set in 1977, just after the sixth season ends and before Johnny and Roy are promoted to captains. I reference several episodes in this story and I stick as closely as I can to canon. As a matter of fact, as I wrote this story (I actually have it all completely written and even beta read), I was careful to adhere to a rule I gave myself: the air date of an episode is the day it happens, and I attempted as much as I could to make my timeline match with canon.

Also, a note to the guest reviewer who questioned why I called the OC I introduced in the last chapter Mr. White Owl, I'm guessing as opposed to simply White Owl. You may be right. I picture this man to be at least 70 years old, so he would have had to have been born no later than 1907. I know some Native people who use the colorful names from their culture as last names and have English first names, and this is what I was depicting. But a little more research may be warranted to see whether or not this was being done in 1907.

"Why don't we all sit down?" The man from the FBI took command, and they all sat at the table, Johnny on the side nearest the building with Mr. White Owl next to him. The other three people sat on the other side, facing him.

Finally the man introduced himself and the group. "I'm Jackson Harding, and this is my partner Rita Warner. You met Ms. Fenway inside, and you know Mr. White Owl. Mr. White Owl is here as a representative of the tribal council from the reservation. It will become clear later why we needed to bring such a person with us, and also a social worker."

"What are your questions for me?" Johnny couldn't find anything in his mind to give him the slightest hint why these four people would come looking for him like this, and it unnerved him. What in the world could the _FBI_ want with him?

Mr. Harding remained the spokesperson. "Do you know, or do you remember, a woman by the name of Patricia Two Elk?"

Johnny started at the name. "Yes," he said, "but I haven't seen or heard from her in over ten years. I don't know anything that's going on with her now."

"Well, two nights ago, she was murdered in her home on the Reservation."

Johnny gulped. "Oh, no! Patty! But…why would you think I would know anything about it?"

"Because the woman who killed her—we know it was a woman—is also threatening you, Mr. Gage."

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Roy looked at Chet, who was pacing. "Why did Gage take those people outside? I can't hear anything!" Chet said.

"That very reason," Roy said dryly.

Cap agreed. "Whatever we need to know, I'm sure we'll be told when they're done with him."

It was forty-five minutes before the group came back in. Surprisingly, the klaxons were silent for all of that time. When the group finally filed back in, Johnny came in last, and his shift mates immediately could see that he was ashen. He did not speak to or even look at anyone, but headed for the dorm.

"Captain?" Jackson Harding, the man from the FBI was still made himself the main speaker. "There will be a police cruiser patrolling this area for at least the next 24 hours, while Mr. Gage is on shift. He has been threatened, and the threat is credible. One person has already been killed. If the threat is not resolved by his next shift, the cruiser will continue to patrol for as long as it takes."

"What! You've got to be kidding! Who is it? Who's threatening him? Who's been killed? Someone close to Johnny? Are any of the rest of us gonna be threatened?" The questions flew fast from all five men, but the FBI agent held up his hand.

"I can't tell you much. I can tell you that it appears to be something personal, having nothing to do with the fire department or any other firefighters." Mr. Harding told them. "Mr. Gage was able, once he understood what had happened and what was going on, to give us a name of a suspect, and we're going to be following that up, so hopefully this will be resolved fairly quickly. Beyond that, what he wants shared is up to him."

Captain Stanley tried another avenue for information. He turned to the old man. "Mr. –ah—White Owl? Is that what John called you? How do you know John? Are you related to him?"

"No. I am a member of the tribal council, and a medicine man in the town on the reservation where Johnny's mother lives. I've been acquainted with him and his family for about twenty-five years, but I had not seen Johnny since he left the reservation ten years ago."

"Why did you call him Chases Cougar?" Chet asked.

At this the old man smiled, obviously ready to relate a story he loved telling. "I conducted the naming ceremony when that name was given to him when he was not quite four years old. A few weeks before, there had been a Cougar spotted in a tree near their home. He was afraid that the Cougar was a threat to his mother and tried to climb the tree to chase the Cougar out."

"I can see him doing something like that," Chet replied with a smile.

The visitors left and Captain Stanley sternly warned Chet not to mock Johnny for his Indian name. "It shows that even when he was little he was trying to protect people. It's a good name for him, and it's probably really special to him. Leave him alone about it!"

"Okay!" Chet said, somewhat defensively. Roy glanced at him and then walked away from the conversation to look for Johnny.

He found him sitting on his bunk, his back against the wall at its head, pillow on his lap, staring ahead of himself at nothing. Roy sat down next to him. "Johnny, who's after you?" he asked.

"Nobody. It's not important."

"That FBI guy said somebody, and it is important."

"I know what they said. But that's not what's important. She said she didn't think she could do anything to me by herself, and I don't think they're going to have any trouble finding her. There aren't that many ways from South Dakota to here."

"Then what _is _important? Is everything—are you—all right?" he asked.

Johnny shook his head. "No." His voice came out in a whisper.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Johnny shrugged. "I'm going to have to," he said. "But I don't want to. I don't know where to start."

"How about at the beginning?"

Johnny smirked and averted his eyes. "You wouldn't want to listen that long."

"I'll listen."

Johnny drew in his breath as though to begin, but the klaxons, which had left them alone up until now, suddenly burst into sound, for the squad only.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's note: Sorry it's been a while. As strange as it sounds I am best able to do this at work, where there is a lot of downtime, but we pretty much have to stay at our workstations. But the company's wifi has been having problems lately. Excuses, excuses!

And I guess I should put this in; I forgot about it until now: I don't own the guys from Emergency, but I do own my OC's.

"Squad 51, cardiac case at…" The address was given as well as follow-up information that they would need to enter the driveway through the parking lot of Immanuel Baptist Church which was next door to the house.

"Why would anyone build their driveway so you have to go through a parking lot to get to the street?" Johnny asked just after Roy had pulled the squad into the street, sirens blaring.

"We've had runs like this before. It just means it's the pastor's house," Roy explained. For some reason, this made Johnny uncomfortable, and he hoped they were able to take care of the patient quickly and get out of there.

They were met by a short, elderly man who led them quickly into the kitchen, where his wife lay moaning on the floor where she had fallen, holding her chest. Johnny and Roy went to work, and in the background, the man dropped to his knees and began praying loudly for his wife. Johnny interrupted him. "Ah, sir, how old is your wife?"

The man looked up. "Eighty-two," he replied.

"And does she have a history of heart problems?"

"She's had some angina. Is she having a heart attack?"

"We don't know that yet." Johnny returned his attention to the patient and the man returned his to his prayers.

Neither Johnny nor Roy really thought that they had any chance of saving their patient. She was having a massive heart attack, and her age was against her. Nevertheless before they put her in the waiting ambulance gurney, her heart's rhythm and other vitals had stabilized and she already appeared much better. As Johnny relayed this to Rampart, the man heard, and changed his prayer. "Oh, thank You for these wonderful firemen who helped my Mabel! I pray many blessings on both of them! And if they have not learned yet of Your great salvation I pray that You give them this gift."

Johnny turned to Roy. "You wanna ride with her?" He asked. He figured the man would ride in the ambulance with his wife so he wanted to be sure he was in the squad where he would have no chance of hearing him pray anymore. If Roy had any idea of Johnny's discomfort he gave no sign. He merely nodded and climbed into the ambulance.

But Johnny wasn't able to escape the man. As he turned to get into the squad, he felt a hand on his arm and turned to see the old preacher looking into his eyes. "Fireman," he said, "I couldn't help but notice you seem kind of sad or worried about something, and I just wanted you to know I'm praying for you."

"Thank you," Johnny said, embarrassed and uncomfortable, but professional and polite as always. He got into the squad quickly.

Later, after having been assured by Dr. Brackett that Mabel the preacher's wife would, somewhat surprisingly, survive this attack, and after loading up on supplies, Johnny and Roy settled into the squad for the drive back to the station. As Roy started the ignition, he grinned at Johnny. "Did you hear that guy praying?"

Johnny nodded and fidgeted uncomfortably. "He told me afterward that he noticed I looked sad or worried. I didn't like it too much that he could read me like that. Was I acting like anything was wrong when we went in there?" That wasn't really why Johnny was so uncomfortable, but it was the only thing he'd say out loud about it. He thought, rightly, that it would deflect Roy away from the unmentionable topic of religion to something safer. Anything would be safer, even the craziness of the morning which brought up so many dark memories. Even the dark memories were safer.

"No, he's just a perceptive guy. There certainly wasn't anything wrong with how you did your job. After all, she's gonna be alright, and I sure didn't expect that when I saw what we had to work with! You did good, Junior. It just gave him something else to think about is all."

Johnny didn't answer, his mind shelving the run and going back to the interview he'd had that morning with the FBI & company. Roy's mind went there, too. "You were about to tell me what all those people wanted with you this morning when we were toned out."

"Roy, it would take way too long to explain it too you! And even if you did want to listen that long, I wouldn't want to talk about it at the station, certainly not where _Chet_ could hear any of it. For you to really get what happened, you'd have to get the whole life history of John Gage."

"And you think I wouldn't want to hear that? Especially since it all somehow relates to the FBI wanting to ask you questions?"

"Roy," Johnny explained, already sounding sulky, "remember the time I took that picture of the chalkboard with the formula on it in a fire, and I started to explain all that technical stuff about lighting and how the picture could have been better? Remember how all of you walked out on me?"

"That's because we didn't want to hear a lecture on photography. We did the same thing to Chet when he had us doing exercises. Remember? When he tried to get us to stand on our heads? This is different. I promise, Junior, I'll listen. If you don't want to talk at the station—well, we've already got supplies, but it's my turn to cook. How about we go to the grocery store?"

Johnny nodded. "Okay." He picked up the mike. "Squad 51 available, 10-8 to Carson Grocery."

"10-4, squad 51."

"That's not the nearest grocery store."

"I told you this is going to take a while."

"Okay."

Johnny hesitated, his hands folded in front of his face, trying to find a way to start. Finally, he said slowly, "Roy, I have a kid."

Roy blinked. "Just born? Is that why there was a social worker?"

"Yes on the social worker, but she's ten."

"Ten! Johnny…"

"Now Roy, I don't need you to point out that I'm not married or that I'm only 27 years old. I know you can do the math."

"That wasn't what I was going to say."

"What then?"

"That FBI agent said that someone was threatening you, and that someone had already been…Johnny, please tell me it wasn't her that was killed."

Johnny shook his head, but his lower lip trembled slightly as he answered. "It…it was her mother."

Roy shook his head at this revelation. "What's going to happen to her now? Your daughter, I mean?"

"I think she's going to come and live with me."

"You _think_ she is? You don't know?"

"I want her to, I was told she wants to, Mr. White Owl said the tribal council is good with it, my relatives and Patty's relatives expect it, but…"

"But what?"

"That social worker! She has 'serious questions' about it being in 'Kimberly's best interest.' "

"Kimberly—your little girl's name?"

"Yeah."

"Why would it not be in her best interest?"

"Because I'm not married, because I work 24 hour shifts and it would be hard to work out child care, because fathers generally get fewer rights in these kinds of things, and what wasn't said, but is probably at least half of it if not more, because I'm an Indian!"

"But so is she, so why would that make a difference?"

"Because Native children are placed in foster homes at a far higher rate than any other race. It seems like white people take any possible excuse to take Indian kids away from their parents. There's actually a bill in the works to stop that happening, but it may not pass in time to help Kimberly and me."

"Well, I can vouch for you, if that will help. And I think Joanne would be willing to have her come to our house when we're on shift."

"Don't go volunteering Joanne without her knowing about it. Remember Eddie?"

Roy nodded, remembering the little boy his family had taken in for a single night, the son of a victim they had rescued. The child had turned out to be a terror. "But this is different. She's not some stranger's kid."

"I haven't raised her. I don't even know her. I didn't know she was alive until this morning. She could be even worse than Eddie for all we know now. And to be perfectly honest, I have some questions myself about whether or not it's a good idea, but if I don't take her, the thing I'm worried about will happen to her anyway."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean she's going to leave the reservation either way. She's going to be ripped away from everything she's ever known, and she's already been traumatized. She heard it—she heard everything—and then she had to relive it to the police and the FBI and she's going to have to do it again and again before it's over. But no one she knows is going to be able to take her. She'll ether go to a white foster home or to me."

Roy blinked. The little girl had _heard _whatever had happened to her mother? "In that case you're definitely in her best interest. And you may even be able to protect her from having to testify in court, too. But now we're almost to the store and you haven't told me the long story you were going to tell me. I guess this will be about who is threatening you and why?"

"Sort of. It's about all of it, except—I don't really know why the threat, why it happened to Patty. It's _senseless._" He paused, and took a breath. "It's also about how I could have had a kid on the reservation and not known about it. The rest of my family, at least the rest of my family on my mother's side, does know her. A lot of this I just found out this morning, and a lot I-I've wanted to talk about for a long time, but I wasn't sure I could. You were the only one I thought I'd be willing to talk to about it, after—after I didn't have Drew anymore. But you said you liked Chet's jokes. I couldn't even talk to Aunt Judy about it because she never could get why her brother would have married an Indian in the first place."

"Wait a minute, what are you talking about? What jokes did I say I liked, and why would that keep you from talking about something you wanted to talk about?"

"Remember when Chet said he was going to stop telling Indian jokes since they bothered me, and you said you disagreed because you liked the jokes and we needed humor at the station?"

"That was years ago. And you took it seriously?"

"You seriously said you wanted to laugh at my heritage."

"All right! I'm sorry! I guess I didn't think about how important it would be to you."

Johnny sighed. "No one ever does." Then he took a deep breath and began his story.


	4. Chapter 4

Author's note: A belated thank you to Rose for help with the names! And thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed so far! I apologize for the snafu with the last chapter. What happened was this: a guest reviewer gave me a criticism that my beta reader had also told me, and I had intended to take that part out, and was shocked that I hadn't. So I went back to edit the story. But, being new to this, I didn't quite know how, and messed up royally in the attempt.

This chapter is a little long. I was hoping to get all of Johnny's story in this chapter, but when I realized how long it was getting, I found what I hope was a good stopping place, and will finish it next time. I didn't think I could maintain Johnny's voice adequately for this long of a story, so I told is as Roy would see it in his imagination as Johnny told it. I hope that's clear in the story.

It took far longer than the trip to the grocery store for Johnny to finish his story. They sat in the parking lot of the store for a little while as Johnny talked, but the story became too emotional for Johnny and, though he successfully kept himself from breaking down, he needed a break. He sat in the squad and collected himself while Roy picked up the needed items, and was able to finish the story.

Throughout the tale, Roy imagined it as though it he were watching a movie, and he was surprised at how much he didn't know about his friend.

January, 1946, Portland, Oregon

Betty Brings Plenty looked nervously around her. _He_ was behind her again. She wasn't going to be able to go home yet, or he would see where she lived. She was supposed to be one of the lucky ones, but what was lucky about ducking into stores to avoid someone who was following her—someone who didn't think a crime was a crime when it was committed against an Indian?

What made her "lucky," she knew, was the fact that she had gotten a job as soon as she had graduated from a nearby Indian boarding school. But how lucky was it that she didn't have enough money to return to her family, that she was forced to rent a cheap apartment and live on her own, far away from home, when she was only eighteen years old? How was it lucky that her boss blamed each and every mistake she made on the "fact" that she was a "stupid Injun," when her white co-workers made just as many mistakes as she did if not more? Their mistakes were more likely to be overlooked. She had a black co-worker and friend who often had the same problem, and they usually came out of the office together, but today her friend was home sick. She had strep throat and it seemed she would be out all week.

And now she was really afraid for her safety. She stayed an hour in the store, and then figured the blond tormenter had given up as he had done in the past. But this time, he was in the shadows again as she tried to continue down the street. By now it was dark and the many of the stores were closing. She had no place to go but her apartment building, so she walked quickly, looking nervously over her shoulder as she went, and hoped there would be people around when she got there.

There weren't, at least not that she could see. She entered the building and began fumbling nervously for her key as she climbed the stairs. Though she tried to do it quickly, her fear made her fingers clumsy. She was still fumbling when she reached her door.

And just as she feared, she heard a sound and looked up and saw him just in front of her, his blue eyes leering into hers. "Hey, squaw, are you all alone? How about I come in and keep you company?"

Just as Betty opened her mouth to scream, another man appeared, seemingly from nowhere, and punched her stalker in the face, hard. "Get away from here and leave her alone!"

"Why? What business is it of yours? It's not like she's your sister!" The man laughed as though that were funny.

"She's somebody's sister! And you aren't going to touch her!"

"Cause you want her all to yourself?" the man challenged.

"Because you're a piece of trash!"

"Now don't go calling me names! Can't you see she's just an Indian?"

"I can see she's a human being, as apparently you aren't. Now get out of here!"

"Make me!"

"I've already got one punch on you."

"But I wasn't expecting that one. The next one won't be a surprise."

But it was, both to the man and to Betty. Her rescuer punched the guy in the stomach hard and fast, and followed it up with a kick. At long last, Betty's pursuer decided to be elsewhere.

Betty gaped in surprise, and finally asked, "Who are you? Where did you learn to do that?"

"The army. I got out last August, right after VJ day. Hi, my name is Roddy Gage." He smiled at her, and his smile was so wide it seemed to light the world, and endearingly lopsided.

"Betty Brings Plenty. Thank you. But I'm afraid he'll be back tomorrow."

"Then I'll walk you home tomorrow. Where do you work?"

"In the Brighton Professional building. I'm a secretary in one of the offices there.

"What time to you get off?"

"Five o'clock."

"Wait until five fifteen and I'll be there."

"You get off at five too? Where do you work?"

"Fire department—well, I'm in training, to tell the truth. I haven't got a paying job right now. I was pretty disgusted with blowing up things and people in Japan and I decided that from now on I'd put out fires rather than start them."

"Well, you sure put out that guy's. Thank you. But if you don't have a job, how do you pay your way?"

"Well," he said a little shamefacedly, "Right now I'm with my parents and five younger brothers and sisters. But that'll change as soon as I'm done my training and I start getting paid. I've already got an apartment lined up."

"Does your family live in this building?" Betty didn't think she'd seen the man before and certainly hadn't seen a family as big as the one described.

"No."

"Then how did you happen to be here?"

"Followed the guy who followed you."

June, 1948 Portland, Oregon

"Betty, are you really an Indian?"

Betty smiled at the eight-year-old who was just about to become her sister-in-law. "Yes, Judy, I'm really an Indian."

"Then how come Roddy has to marry you? Couldn't he find anybody normal to marry?"

Betty stopped smiling and couldn't think of an answer. The question was so hurtful, yet so innocently asked. She didn't know what to do with it.

March, 1953, Portland Oregon

Firefighter/Rescue Man Jamison Smith stopped crawling as smoke and fumes from the burning warehouse overcame him. He and his partner, Roddy Gage, had been sweeping for a victim who was thought to still be inside, but had found no one. Now neither man could breathe, and both were crawling as quickly as they could to get to the door. Roddy knew it would be useless to try to speak and he grabbed the man beside him and pulled him as he continued on. But Jamison was bigger than he and the exertion made him eat even more smoke. He came close to the door, but fell unconscious before reaching it. Another firefighter pulled Smith, then Gage the rest of the way out. This firefighter would forever regret pulling Gage out last. Their fire department did not yet have SCBA's, and smoke inhalation had claimed another victim. He was twenty-five years old.

Betty Gage clung to her two-year-old son, who had just woken up from his nap and had no idea anything was wrong. A man who identified himself as a fire chief had come and told her that her husband wasn't coming home, and she could hardly register it. She held little Johnny so that he straddled her pregnant belly, which was only beginning to be big enough to notice. After the man left she broke down in sobs, rocking and rocking her toddler boy.

Roddy Gage's family would not leave her alone. They could not believe that a twenty-four year old Indian woman would be an adequate mother to Roddy's children anyway, and now that Roddy was gone, they were sure she wouldn't know how to do things. They "helped" her so much over the next few weeks that she took her son and practically fled to the reservation.

Betty's parents were thrilled to have her back, but her brother Lester was not at all pleased that she had come home with a half-breed and another on the way. Within weeks of her arrival, he came in drunk and beat and kicked her in the stomach until she went into labor and delivered an extremely premature baby girl, who died shortly after birth. Johnny would remember for the rest of his life his mother crying, not when it happened, but long afterward, though he did not why know for years. When he did know it, it came with an understanding that no human being could do anything worse to another than what his uncle had done to his mother. He never knew or remembered his uncle. The rest of the Brought Plenty family carefully and vigilantly protected Johnny until Lester was arrested, even though Lester had never made any threatening moves toward the child.

Betty remarried in 1955, a man who had been married before and who had a six year old son, Ellis. Her new husband, Leonard Parker, helped her get a job as a cook on the ranch on which he worked, land on the reservation that had been leased to a white rancher. Johnny was almost five, and he and his step-brother became fast friends.

For a while after Johnny started school, Ellis was his only friend. Some of his schoolmates made sure he never forgot he was a half-breed. He didn't understand what they had against his father. His mother told him his father had died a hero. And even his grandparents, who didn't like other white people, had said that Roddy Gage was a "different kind of white man." And at any rate, his father was dead and had never been to the Reservation and hadn't done anything to Johnny's would-be friends.

December, 1966, Pine Ridge, South Dakota

"I'm sorry I don't have a birthday present for you. I'm hoping to have a Christmas present for you, when Christmas gets here, but I don't have money for a birthday present." Johnny spoke regretfully to the girl he currently liked, Patty Two Elk. They were home from their respective boarding schools for Christmas vacation, and in January they would be going back again, each to far separate states.

Johnny hated the school he went to. The teachers and administrators were constantly telling them not to "talk Indian," and punishing them, even beating them, if they did speak in their native languages. Or they beat them for other infractions. They worked the students hard with manual labor outside of school hours, and kept telling them that they were lazy, and that their laziness was because they were Indians. They told them that everything that their parents had taught them was at best wrong and at worst downright evil, and they had to reject their parents and grandparents and accept a new way, a white way. It made the students bitter, resentful, and depressed. They would go home and drink, just as their parents before them had done, from the time somebody got the bright idea to send Native American teenagers to boarding schools off the reservations in the first place.

Patty's school was said to be better. There were no beatings and the chores were not excessive. The students were required to learn and speak English, but were actually encouraged to keep their native languages alive. Some of the teachers even expressed an interest in learning them. They were encouraged to make traditional native crafts. But they were still taught that the spirituality of their parents and grandparents was tantamount to devil worship, and Johnny could not understand why white people thought that. Even still, he wished he could go to Patty's school. His mother had him on the waiting list, but their waiting list was long, and he, now in his junior year of high school, was unlikely to get in at all.

"That's okay," Patty was saying in response to his regret over not having a birthday present for her mid-December sixteenth birthday. "There's only one thing I want from you, and it won't cost you anything." They both believed at the time that Patty was right, that it would cost nothing. But it would later prove that that this "gift" was the most expensive one he'd ever given or would give in his life. And the cost was even greater to her.

She wrote him later, when they were back in school. She was pregnant, and if the school officials found out, she'd be kicked out. She would try to keep it a secret until the end of the school year, at which time she'd be nearly six months along. Then she could have the baby over the summer and go back to finish her senior year with her mother raising her baby.

It all sounded neat and tidy, except for one thing: her mother had had polio as a child and was in a wheelchair. How could she take care of a baby? She'd had a lot of help when Patty and her sister had been born, but that help was no longer available. Johnny fretted about this, but the answer came in what was to their way of thinking the worst possible way. The school found out about Patty's pregnancy just before the end of the year. Since school was almost done, she was allowed to finish the year, but would not be allowed to come back. And since she named the father, Johnny's name was taken off the waiting list.

Patty couldn't have gone back to school even if she hadn't been found out. Her idea of having the baby over the summer would not have happened. The doctor she saw at the reservation clinic placed her due date in mid-September, and by that time the trains bearing Native teenagers to their boarding schools would have long since left the station.

August 27, 1967 Pine Ridge Reservation

Alcohol flowed freely at the teen party, which was held at the ranch house belonging to the rancher who employed Johnny's mother and stepfather and the parents of most of the other kids as well. Of course Patty wasn't partaking. She was only a couple weeks from her due date and that was evident to everyone there. But that didn't mean that Johnny couldn't. Ordinarily this wouldn't be happening on a Sunday night, but the kids were still out of school, and few of them, even among the ones such as Ellis who were done with school, had jobs. The Trents hosted this party for the children of their workers every year just before they went back to their schools. They shut their eyes to the underage drinking, because, to their way of thinking, you couldn't stop an Indian from drinking, so why try? They thought they were being kind, knowing the kids didn't really like having to be away from home all that time. Their paternalistic attitudes could be spotted a mile away, but since they allowed the kids to drink, it was overlooked for that one night. The party was always held two nights before the majority of the kids left, so that they could have a day to sober up.

The next day was going to be Johnny's seventeenth birthday, and the day after that he was to board the train to go back to that horrible boarding school. He meant to enjoy himself tonight. He had already had enough booze to give him a fairly major buzz when he saw something that immediately spoiled his good time. Ellis was flirting with Patty, and Patty was flirting back. Over the summer this had been developing, and Johnny had seen it, but didn't know what to do about it. Patty just didn't seem interested in him anymore, and how could that be, since they were going to have a child together? Johnny sat in the kitchen where he could see out the back and downed more whiskey and watched them and brooded. There they were, out on the deck. Ellis said something and Patty threw back her head and laughed. Then he put his hand on Patty's belly to feel the baby move, and Johnny's anger grew. This was _his _baby! And then Ellis kissed her.

Johnny tore out of the house. "How dare you! How dare you!" he sputtered drunkenly. He took a swing at his stepbrother, but missed, and hit Patty instead, as she was rushing in to stop him. The moment slowed down to Johnny and became a moment he would relive over and over again and defined much of what he did for the rest of his life from that point. Patty screamed and fell down the deck stairs and onto the patio below. The screaming continued, and Johnny leaped over the railing. She hadn't fallen far, only about five feet, but it was far enough.

"Patty! Patty! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I was aiming for Ellis, not you! Please, please, are you all right!"

Patty just kept screaming and holding her belly.

"Patty, please tell me you're not in labor!"

"You just get away from me, you drunken idiot!" And she pushed him away.

"No, Patty, let me help you. Please, I'm sorry!" Johnny was crying now, and this disgusted Patty.

"Get out of here!"

Finally rough hands drug him away, but the voice that spoke wasn't rough. "You're upsetting her more, Johnny. We're going to take care of her." It was Frank Trent, the owner of the ranch.

Mrs. Trent loaded Patty into her car, saying she would take her to the reservation hospital and notify Patty's mother. Patty's sister Carol got in the car beside her, but not before shooting Johnny a horrified, hate-filled glance.

Johnny was staring after them, mortified, when Ellis came up to him. Johnny couldn't hold on to his anger at Ellis now that emotional shock was sobering him up, but he didn't want to see his stepbrother, either. All he knew was that he wanted everything to be okay and it wasn't. "Ellis, I'm going to sweat. Tell Mom and Leonard where I am."

"I'll tell them," Ellis said, and Johnny left, hitchhiking, for the closest sweat lodge, the one belonging to Wilbur White Owl.

All Johnny had to go on for figuring out the _why_ of what happened next was the Medicine Man's guesses. Mr. White Owl surmised from what happened later that Ellis must have thought that Patty might go back to Johnny after the baby was born and guessed that it was also a possibility that Johnny would not return to school after this. Ellis must have been formulating a new plan to get Johnny out of town. What he told their parents was that Johnny had hit Patty on purpose, and that he had said that he hoped that she would lose the baby after this, so he wouldn't be saddled with being a father. He didn't tell them anything about the sweat lodge.


	5. Chapter 5

Author's note: Sorry this chapter is so long. I couldn't find a good stopping place and wanted to finish Johnny's story. Remember that I'm telling it as though Roy is imagining it while Johnny tells it. The Lakota word in this chapter, wasicu, pronounced wa-SEE-choo, means white person.

Second author's note: I rewrote a small portion of this chapter because a kind person who happens to actually be Lakota pm'd me and told me the situation would have played out slightly differently. It doesn't affect the outcome of the story, and I do want to do this right.

Wilbur White Owl received Johnny and kindly but did not allow him into the sweat lodge, due to his intoxication. He did, however, allow him to stay the night and sleep it off.

Johnny didn't go home the next morning. He hitchhiked to the hospital instead. Before he could cross the parking lot Patty's sister, Carol, hurried out to meet him. "Don't bother to go in, Johnny," the fifteen-year-old told him. The baby was born this morning but it died. Patty doesn't want to see you."

Patty cradled her perfectly healthy newborn daughter and looked out the window to the parking lot. She had seen Johnny get out of Black Wolf's rusty pick-up and hurriedly sent her sister out to him to do her part in carrying out her plan to punish the boy for last night. She had spent nine hours in labor before the baby was finally born. The entire nine hours Patty had been convinced she was losing her baby, and now that she knew the baby was all right her terror had turned to anger. This was all Johnny's fault, and Patty was going to make him pay on his birthday. Since she had suffered nine hours, he could suffer eighteen, or even twenty-four. She'd tell him the truth the next day or maybe that night at the earliest. She was not going to let Johnny celebrate that his daughter shared his birthday, when she wouldn't be sharing it if Johnny had acted human last night.

She watched as Carol approached Johnny, and then she saw Johnny sink to his knees, head thrown back, mouth open in a scream she could not hear from her window, and she forgave him, at least somewhat. By the time a hospital worker came in to help her fill out paperwork so that the baby's birth could be recorded, and she could be enrolled in the tribe and get a birth certificate, Patty was feeling guilty for her cruel lie.

Weeks earlier, when they had talked about naming the baby, Johnny had declared that even if the baby was a girl, he wanted her middle name to be after him. "And how are we going to do that?" Patty had asked, laughing. "Last time I checked, John was a boy's name."

"Ah, but _Jean_ is a girl's name!" Johnny had replied.

The worker snapped Patty back to the present saying, "I see here that the baby's father has already signed an affidavit of paternity, so that gives her his last name. But how about the rest of her name? Do you have it picked out yet?" The woman smiled, her pen poised over the paper.

Patty nodded, but could not keep the sadness borne of guilt out of her voice as she replied, "Her name is Kimberly Jean."

"Kimberly Jean Gage," the woman repeated as she wrote. "And where's papa? Is he going to be here soon?"

"I'm sure he will later. I haven't gotten word to him yet." Funny how once she started lying she had to continue, just to save face.

John stumbled out of the parking lot, weeping and not even trying to stop himself. He walked along the road for a while, and when he could finally get his tears to cease he put out his thumb for a ride home.

He didn't know what he was going to say to his parents. He only knew that he didn't want to celebrate his birthday—not then and not ever again.

He did not expect what happened when he walked in the door. His stepfather met him with a belt. His mother saw him come in, but she stood up and wordlessly turned her back and walked out of the room.

Leonard Parker got his first hint that everything was not as he had been told by his son when he stopped beating his stepson. Johnny didn't move, but he whispered, "Don't stop." Leonard took a step back.

"Don't put on that innocent act. Ellis told us what you did last night. Hitting a pregnant woman? Get out of here! Go on, leave! I don't want to see you!"

Johnny fled.

His stepbrother found him twenty minutes later, sitting on the grass about fifty yards from the house, absently tearing up the grass. Ellis sat down next to him.

"Patty lost the baby." John said flatly.

"I'm sorry. I know you were aiming for me. What are you going to do now?"

"I don't know."

"You could go find your Uncle Lester. You have something in common now." Ellis smiled, but Johnny found the remark so cruel he nearly threw up.

"I'm half serious, Johnny. Everybody knows you and they'll all know what happened, and that's what they'll think about every time they see you. You're a half-breed, and people will believe the worst. You've been Indian for all this time, but maybe now you should go be white."

"You mean go look up my father's family?"

"Why not? They don't have to know what you did last night. You look a mess, so they'll probably take you in, figuring those Indians don't know how to raise a kid. Then you can go to school and graduate and get a job and show them what Indians can really do. You're a really smart guy, Johnny."

"You think so?" This idea began to sound possible. It never occurred to Johnny that Ellis was playing his guilt to get him out of town. He began to think he was just going to take off and hitchhike like he'd done already, not even going back to the house for anything, and find some trucker to take him to Portland.

Ellis encouraged him. "You can write me when you find out where you'll be and get me an address. That way I can write to you when this has blown over and people aren't mad at you anymore and you can come home.

And finally, that's exactly what Johnny did, with Ellis' help. Ellis borrowed a rusted truck and took him off the reservation to the nearest place where trucker's were likely to come. It was over an hour to the highway, but Ellis made no stops along the way, going or returning.

Shortly after Ellis came back to the house, Wilbur White Owl came by, accompanied by his nephew, Gordie Wilson, who was friends with both Johnny and Ellis and had been at the party the night before. "I just wanted to check on Johnny," he said to Leonard and Betty. "He came to me last night wanting to sweat, but I wouldn't let him because he was drunk. He was still pretty upset this morning when he left. I just wanted to see if he was all right."

"Sweat? We didn't know he'd gone to the sweat lodge." Betty replied.

"Johnny said he told Ellis to tell you."

"Well, he didn't," Leonard stated. "He just told us what happened at the party. Did Johnny tell you that?"

"Not really. He was practically incoherent when he got to me. He'd been drinking, and he was crying really hard and said he'd done something really bad—that's all I got. But Gordie told me some."

"He hit his girlfriend on the deck of the ranch house and made her fall. She's just two weeks away from delivering a baby."

White Owl nodded. "I see."

"One thing I don't understand," Leonard said. "Ellis told us last night that Johnny had hit Patty in anger and then said that he hoped she lost the baby. How did he go from that to so much anguish so quickly?"

Gordie spoke up. "Johnny didn't hit Patty on purpose. I don't know how Ellis got the idea he did. He was going to hit _Ellis_ for kissing Patty, but he was too drunk and Patty got in the way. He never said he was glad or that he hoped Patty lost the baby. He started crying and begging Patty to let him help her."

At this point, Ellis apparently got the idea that he needed to do damage control to protect his lies. He walked into the room. "He said that right after it happened, and I was the only one on the patio with him. You were still inside then, Gordie. Then I guess he must have thought about it. Somebody must have told him that Patty lost the baby because that's what he told me when he saw me this morning. I tried to stop him! I did!"

"Tried to stop him from what, Ellis?" Betty asked.

"From—from…" Ellis was able to work up a few tears. "From jumping into the White Clay Reservoir! I followed him there but by the time I got to him he was too far out for me to swim to him, and he went down and…and he didn't come back up! I tried! I just got back a few minutes ago and you were here, Mr. White Owl, and I just didn't know how to tell you, Mom and Dad! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I tried to stop him but I couldn't!"

Betty screamed, much as Johnny had screamed earlier when he had been told a similar lie—your only child is dead.

Wilbur White Owl was less sure. "You didn't go in after him? You're not wet at all. I know you can swim."

"Not in that deep of water. He was out in the middle before I could do anything!"

August 30, 1967 Portland, Oregon

Johnny hadn't eaten since the day of the party, so if the trucker hadn't bought him a meal, he didn't know if he could have made it. Another trucker had taken pity on him and given him $20.00. He used that money to hail a taxi. "Take me to the city fire department headquarters," he told the driver. "I'm meeting someone there."

"You look like you need a shower first."

"Look, I'm paying you. That's what's important."

"It's not the only thing. I don't want a stinking Injun smelling up my cab!"

It took Johnny three tries to find a cab driver willing to take him. But eventually he was walking through the doors of the fire department headquarters. A woman, a receptionist, looked up at him in disgust. "Can I help you?" she asked, obviously wanting to get him out of there as quickly as possible.

"I'm looking for someone who can put me in contact with the family of Roderick Gage."

The woman's eyes widened at the name. "Why?" she asked.

"I'm his son."

The woman now looked at pictures on the wall and back to Johnny. She pointed to a black and white picture on the wall. "Is that you?"

Johnny looked where the woman pointed. A blown up framed photograph met his eyes, a picture of a thin man in firefighter turnouts, holding a toddler boy, almost a baby, whose face was almost obscured by his father's fire helmet that he wore on his head. The man was smiling at the child, the same wide, crooked smile he recognized from his own image in the mirror. A placard beneath the picture read "In memory of Roderick Gage, March 26, 1953." Johnny stared. It was the first picture he'd ever seen of his father, and he was in it, too. He nodded slowly.

"I'll get Chief Smith. He'll want to see you."

Chief Jamison Smith stared in wonder at the skinny, dirty boy who sat in his office. The boy had obviously been through something terrible recently. His body bore marks of healing wounds. And he was thin, so terribly thin. "You're Johnny Gage, the Papoose, all grown up!" he said, "I can hardly believe it."

Johnny's eyes narrowed at being called a papoose, but he let it go. "You knew my father?"

"Knew him! I'm alive because of him! I'm alive because he got me out of the fire he didn't make it out of himself. He was a hero, son."

Johnny smiled, his first genuine smile since it had all happened. And the fire chief noticed. "Wow, you're definitely Roddy's son! You smile just like he did. If there's anything I can do for you, just name it."

"Could you put me in contact with his family? And—I need a place to stay—and take a shower."

Chief Smith nodded, but asked, "How old are you?"

Johnny didn't answer at first. He figured he'd be sent home if he told the truth, but if he lied, well, this man knew him when he was a baby and could do the math and figure it out and then he would have lost a potential ally. "Seventeen," he replied.

"What happened to your family? The people who raised you?"

"They—they—please, Mr. Smith, don't send me back there."

Chief Smith regarded Johnny and Johnny could way too easily guess what he was thinking. He was thinking that those Indians had beat up his friend's son and he just _couldn't_ send him back there—just as Ellis had predicted he would think.

"Okay," the fire chief finally said. "I know that Roddy's parents—your grandparents—are still here in town, and he had several brothers and sisters. They'll all be glad to hear from you."

But Chief Smith was only partially right about Roddy's family. As solicitous as the Gages had been when Johnny was a toddler, they almost to a person turned their back on him now that he was almost grown. He was an Indian, raised on the reservation, and that was something they did not understand and something to which they could not relate. In theory the family wanted to keep him but struggled with who was actually going to take him in. No one seemed to want him for real. He passed from one to another within a couple weeks' time. No one mentioned enrolling him in school, and when he asked, he was told to "give it a few days and see." Most were surprised he even asked, as though they expected him to be a drop out.

Finally Roddy's youngest sister came up from Santa Barbara, California, and she and her husband were introduced to Johnny. Johnny's uncle could hardly believe that his wife's family had been unable to find a place for her brother's son. Judy had always looked up to Roddy, and he had heard all their married life—the past five years—what a hero Roddy had been, and that he'd died in a fire saving another fireman. This was no way to treat Roddy's son, just because he was part from another race, and had been raised differently than the rest of the family. When the couple went back to Santa Barbara, Johnny went with them, grateful and determined that they would not be sorry for their kindness.

September 30, 1972, Pine Ridge Reservation

"You're not really my cousin!" the little boy announced. "You don't belong in this family!"

Kimberly, age five, looked up at the ten-year-old. "I do so!"

"Yes, she does!" his older sister countered. She's your _second _cousin. Her Daddy is our cousin."

"He's our cousin, but he's not her daddy!"

"Hush, Wayne! You're not supposed to tell about that!"

Kimberly looked over at where her daddy—or the person she'd always called her daddy—was visiting with her great-grandparents, the parents of Leonard Parker. "He is so my daddy!"

"No, he's not, you're daddy's dead!"

"He is not!"

Wayne laughed at the little girl getting upset, until his sister pulled him away, making him stop. "Aw, Wanda, you're no fun!"

But Wayne had planted the idea in Kimberly's head. The idea would not have taken root had it not been for Lisa's birthday party the day before. Lisa was Kimberly's sister, three years old. And Ellis Parker, who she'd always called Daddy, had wanted her to have this party. Back in the spring, when baby Laura had turned one, there had been a party for her. But for Kimberly's own birthday, just a few weeks ago, about the time she had gone to kindergarten for the first time, there had been no party. Mama had even argued with daddy to even let her have a cake. She got no gifts. And then daddy had spent the day away from the house and hadn't come home until long after she had gone to bed. When she'd gotten up to get ready to go to school the next morning, Mama had said she must be very quiet because Daddy didn't feel good. Kimberly knew she wasn't supposed to know this, but she did know that every time her mama had said that about Daddy, Daddy had been drinking. One night last summer she had actually seen him come in when he'd been gone all day. He stumbled in the door, long after she had gone to bed, but his noise woke her up and now she had to go to the outhouse. Their house on the "rez" had no running water. She got up to go out the back door and practically ran into him.

"Sorry, Daddy. I just need to go to the outhouse."

"You little brat!" he yelled, his words slurred. "I _knew_ you'd take after 'im! Always in the way!" He pushed her aside so hard that she fell to the floor and wet her pants. "Well?" he said. "Are you gonna jus' sit there on th' floor? I thought you needed to go to the outhouse!"

"Uh…I don't need to anymore," she said in a small voice.

"Ugh!" he growled and carried her roughly into the kitchen, where whipped her with a wooden spoon until Mama came and begged him to stop.

"She's four years old! It was an accident!" She pleaded. "You don't beat either of the other girls for an accident!"

"They're still in diapers. She's not."

"That's not what I mean and you know it. You wouldn't be doing this if she was…if things were different."

"If things were different she wouldn't have even been born! I wish she hadn't!"

So now, after thinking about it all, there was no getting around it. Her Daddy was not as nice to her as he was to her sisters. And lately, he wasn't even nice to Mama, either. A lot of times Kimberly had heard him yell at her for her friends the Johnsons. But Kimberly knew the Johnsons. They were nice. Mrs. Johnson was helping her sing.

That night, when they went home, Kimberly was still thinking about it. And the next morning, when she and her Mama and her sisters were out walking, Kimberly decided to ask about it. "Mama, Wayne said something really strange to me yesterday."

"What did he say, baby?"

"He said I wasn't really his cousin because Daddy isn't really my daddy. Why did Wayne say that?"

Patty stopped walking and stared at her daughter. Kimberly looked up at her. And to her utter surprise there were tears in her Mama's eyes. Finally, Patty answered, "I'll tell you later, baby."

And later that day, after lunch, when Lisa and Laura were down for their naps, and Kimberly was supposed to be napping, too, Patty came and sat down on the floor beside the bed where all three girls were sleeping.

"Kimberly?" she whispered. "Wayne is right; you did have a different Daddy. Ellis is Lisa and Laura's Daddy, but your Daddy's name was John Gage. He was Ellis' brother. But…baby, he drowned in the White Clay Reservoir right after you were born. Right after I had—after I had lied to him and said that you didn't make it. That something he did to me before you were born had made you die. I know he was very sad but I never got to tell him the truth."

Kimberly's eyes opened wide. "Mama, are you _sure_ he died?"

"I'm sure. Nobody was with him but Ellis, and nobody ever found him in that deep water, but Ellis said…"

"He could have been lying. My real daddy might have run away."

"Oh, sweetheart, why would Daddy do that?"

"Which Daddy do you mean?"

"Ellis."

"I don't know. But what if he was lying and my real Daddy is alive somewhere?"

"Baby, I know you want him to be, but he isn't."

January, 1973, Pine Ridge Reservation

"No, Ellis, you can't do this!"

"Shut up! I told you you were going to regret breaking off with me."

"You can't take my babies."

"You've still got one. If you don't want me, you don't get my kids, either."

"But Laura's still a baby! She's still nursing!"

"She'll wean. She's over a year old. This is the way it's going to be. I'm going to my mother over in Kyle. They know how you are, and they don't want you coming over there. You're kicking me out, and you're going to have to pay for it!" And he roared away in his '61 pick-up, the two little girls standing, holding the dashboard. Patty cried and clung to Kimberly.

She did get to see them again over the next few years, but it was rare.

Fall 1973, Los Angeles, California

Johnny had been a paramedic for nearly two years when he met Athena Clinton. And he didn't "strike out" with her. He dated her exclusively for a while. She was beautiful, and a little odd, but in a good way. He could now see what a compliment it actually was that Roy had called him "a friendly sort of nut." That actually described Athena to a T. And he couldn't believe just how smart and creative she was.

They had dated for a while when Johnny took her out one evening in October, he found her despondent. "What's wrong?"

"If I tell you, you will think less of me."

"Try me."

Athena sighed. "Really, you won't want to go out with me anymore if I tell you."

"I promise, I won't let it affect what I think of you." Johnny knew even as he said it, that he may have to eat those words.

Finally, she told him, "I had a baby when I was fifteen. She would have been eight today. But when she was two months old she—she quit breathing."

Johnny was sympathetic. "That—that _is_ awful." He hesitated. He knew there was some comfort he could offer her, but it would mean delving into something he'd far rather leave alone, something he'd not mentioned for years, but had been unable to shut out of his mind for more than a few hours at a time. Finally, making a quick decision, he continued. But if it made me think less of you I'd be a hypocrite. I never told anybody but I had a girlfriend who had a baby when we were in high school. But the baby was stillborn. There's—there's no worse feeling in the world." Not once in the time since it had happened had Johnny come close to mentioning it to anyone, not even the relatives he lived with. This had been part of why most of the Gages didn't want anything to do with him—he wouldn't tell them _why_ he had run away, how to get in contact with his mother, or anything about where he had been or what he had been doing between the time he was two years old and the time he was seventeen. He just wasn't going to talk about it. But he did that day.

"You did? I'm so sorry! I really feel for that baby's mother."

They sat in silence for a few seconds. Then Athena looked up and said quietly, "The mother, what was her name?"

Athena did like to think in terms of story characters, and Johnny knew this. If putting a name to a person helped her to draw comfort from his story, well, all right. "Her name was Patty Two Elk and she lives on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, or she did then."

Saturday evening after Thanksgiving, November, 1974

Athena had been with her family for Thanksgiving, but there had been little Thanksgiving for Johnny. He and Roy were beginning to be good friends, but they weren't close enough yet for Roy to realize that Johnny was alone even on holidays, and to invite him over. And Aunt Judy had gone to the rest of the Gages in Portland and Johnny didn't want to go and face their racism and scorn. So he was glad when Athena was back in town and he could take her out.

Lately her oddities had increased somewhat, and Johnny was beginning to think he was going to have to do something about it. In fact, she almost seemed to see things that weren't there sometimes, things that scared her, and this worried Johnny. He was beginning to suspect she was taking something.

When he picked her up that evening, she was wearing a blue dress she knew he particularly liked. "Hi, Johnny," she said, as he leapt from his Land Rover, ran to the passenger side and opened the door for her. "I've got a surprise for you tonight. A really big one."

Whatever the surprise was, it was all she could talk about all the way to the restaurant. Somehow she talked about it non-stop without giving away even a hint as to what it was. But as they were walking in, she saw someone she thought she recognized. Her mood changed from happy and excited to angry and even afraid in an instant. "You told them! I knew you would tell them! And now they're here!"

"Told who what? Who's here?" Johnny was confused. They sat down at a table.

"There!" she pointed. Johnny could see no one he recognized in the direction she pointed.

"There's nobody there I know, nobody I've been talking to."

Athena deteriorated further as the evening progressed. They had ordered appetizers and were nibbling on them, waiting for their meals, when she suddenly jumped up, grabbing a steak knife. She ran at Johnny, screaming. "I told you this was going to happen! You've ruined it all!"

It took Johnny, another patron, a manager, and a police officer to calm her down. Johnny went into paramedic mode as he went with her to the hospital. He was glad it was Harbor General and not Rampart. He would not have wanted anyone he knew to see that he had gone out with a drug addict.

He checked back the next day, but was told she had been transferred to a treatment center. He was given no further information, and never saw her again.

Tuesday, October 11, 1977 Pine Ridge, South Dakota 9:00 PM

Grandmother Two Elk was paralyzed from an illness and Kimberly helped her into bed like she always did, and then she snuggled down under the covers beside her. Grandmother kissed her on her forehead. "Goodnight, Beautiful Song," she said.

"Goodnight, Grandmother."

But the two did not sleep. A knock sounded on the front door, and Kimberly heard her mother get up to answer it. The walls were thin in their little house, and she and Grandmother could hear every word that was said.

"Can I help you?"

"You're Patty Two Elk, right?" a female voice answered.

"Yes." The affirmation was more of a question.

"You don't know me, but you and I have something in common."

"What's that?"

"Both of us have had our lives ruined by one John Gage."

Patty gasped, as did her mother and daughter in the bedroom.

"What are you talking about? Who are you? When did you know Johnny?"

"I knew John three years ago in LA, and he ruined my life there, just as he ruined yours back in high school."

Kimberly gasped again, and her grandmother shushed her. "But Grandmother! She said she knew my … He's alive, just like I said!"

"Shh, child, something's wrong. I don't want this wasicu knowing you're here before we know more! It might not be safe."

"That's not possible," Patty was saying. "Johnny's been dead for ten years."

"Not true. He's a paramedic in Los Angeles, where he lives. He told me about you. He told me you had his baby in high school."

Kimberly's hands flew to her face, and then she tried to get up, but her grandmother, though her legs didn't work, had nothing wrong with her arms, and held her tightly. "You're not going out there!"

"But he's alive! My father is alive!"

"No. This woman is not telling the truth."

"Then how does she know about _me_?"

"Shh!"

When Kimberly quieted, Patty was asking the same question, warily. "How do you know about that?"

"He told me. Look, if you don't believe I really know him, here's a picture of him and me together."

There was a pause. Then Patty's voice. "He's alive! He really is alive! And he's in LA? He's a para—a what?"

"Paramedic!" The voice was scornful. "It means he's a fireman who goes around treating sick or injured people like a doctor. But he sure wasn't any help to me!"

"A paramedic! Patty said wonderingly. That sounds like something he'd do."

"Yeah, well, since he's a sort of a _hero_ back home in LA," she spat out the word "hero", "he doesn't have any other enemies like you and I are."

"I am not an enemy to him! What did he do to you?"

"He _only _completely ruined my life, just like he did yours."

"My life isn't ruined!"

"Yes it is! He told me you had a stillborn baby, his baby."

"My life isn't ruined," she insisted. "But what do you want from me?"

"I want you to come to LA with me. I don't think I can do it by myself and I need your help."

"You need my help for what?"

"To kill him." She spoke calmly, like this was the most natural thing in the world.

Patty laughed. "Yeah, right," she said sarcastically. "I'm not even mad at him. I can't tell you how glad I am to find out he's alive!"

"You're just not making sense!" her visitor replied. "You have every reason to hate him, just like I do."

"Just what did he tell you?"

"Just that you had a stillborn baby while you were in high school. I know what it's like to lose a baby as a teenager. You don't get over that."

Patty didn't answer.

"Grandmother, why doesn't Mama tell the lady that I'm alive?"

"Because this woman is dangerous. Better she doesn't know you're here."

"But Mama won't lie."

"I know she won't. But she won't tell either. Stay quiet."

Kimberly nodded.

The voices in the front room continued. "So how about it? How soon can you be ready to leave for LA?

"Wait, you're actually _serious_ about this? I think it's time you left."

"I'm not leaving without you. I know you don't have a phone to call the cops. And this house isn't in shouting distance from any other houses."

"I'm not going anywhere. Not with you."

After that it got ugly. Grandmother continued to hold Kimberly as both of them sobbed, neither of them able to do anything about what was happening.


	6. Chapter 6

Roy was transferred back to the present as his partner finally stopped talking. He had been fascinated by Johnny's story, so much so that they were still sitting in the squad nearly ten minutes after he had backed into the bay.

"Johnny…I—I don't know what to say."

"I know. What can anybody say?"

"Did you ever write your stepbrother?"

"Only about half a dozen times! He always answered that everybody was still mad at me and that I should stay away. And now I know what my mother has thought for the last ten years. I hate Ellis!"

Roy nodded, and they got out of the squad. "One thing I don't understand in your story," he said. "You said you came to Santa Barbara when you were seventeen, and about to enter your senior year in high school. But you told me once a long time ago that you ran track for _two_ years to impress a girl. But you were a track star in California, where you only had one year left of school. How could that be?"

Johnny gave a joyless laugh. "I found out when I finally did get enrolled in school that the people who run those boarding schools care a whole lot more about what they take out of us than what they put into us. And I'd already missed a lot of the first semester. It took me two years to graduate." He took a breath and continued. "Now that I've told you all this it doesn't feel like it needs to be such a big secret anymore. But I don't think I can go through telling it again. You can tell the guys whatever you want to, when I'm not in the room."

Roy nodded. "If that's the way you want to do it. But you will need to talk to Cap, won't you? You're going to be taking some time off, right?"

John shrugged. "Not yet. I'm missing Patty's funeral today. My mother will be bringing Kimberly soon, I think, but not until they know if Athena is the one who did this and if she is, she's caught. I'll take some personal time when they come."

"Missing the funeral? But wouldn't—I mean, I don't know anything about this but wouldn't that medicine man be in charge of it? And he's here, in LA."

"He said something about her not wanting traditional mourning rites. I didn't ask. It's not like Patty and I have really had any kind of a relationship since we were sixteen years old."

Chet had a way of popping up and making light of the most serious conversations Johnny and Roy would have, and, though he did pop into the bay just then, he heard them talking about a funeral and realized that now wasn't the time. It was easy to guess that they were talking about whoever it was who had been killed by whoever was threatening Johnny. It was nothing to joke about, but Chet didn't really know how to speak seriously around Johnny. Nevertheless, he did his best to change his mental gears. "Is everything all right, Gage?"

"Roy can tell you about it." And he walked out of the bay and headed for the office. "Cap? I need to make a couple long distance phone calls. I'll pay for them. But I need to have some privacy."

"You're kicking me out of my own office?" Hank smiled.

"Please, Cap? I told Roy all about what's going on and asked him to tell everybody anyway."

"Sure, John, if it's that important." Cap got up and walked out of the room, looking for Roy.

"Roy? What's going on? Did Gage tell you about it?" Chet asked.

"Yeah, he did. And he told me I could tell the rest of you so he doesn't have to tell it again."

"So tell us," Chet demanded. They were in the day room now, and the rest of the engine company was there, now including Cap. Everyone else dropped what they were doing and looked at Roy expectantly.

Roy sat down. "It's really a long story, but the short version is that Johnny has just found out that he has a ten-year-old daughter whose mother has just been killed by somebody who hates him. The FBI is taking the threat seriously, but I don't think Johnny is. It was a woman, and she said at the time that she didn't think she could—could do it by herself."

"Gage has a _kid_? Chet asked incredulously.

Roy nodded. "Her name is Kimberly and he's hoping that she will come to live with him. He's afraid that social worker that was here might try to prevent it because of the 24 hour shifts, and because of some perceived racism. She's been on the reservation ever since she was born."

"Nothing against John, but why would they take her away from the people she knows and put her into what for her will be a strange culture?" Marco asked.

Roy glanced at him and realized with a jolt that Marco, a Hispanic and therefore a minority, would know what he was talking about. "Johnny mentioned that. He's concerned about that, too, but he said that for some reason nobody on the reservation can take her and if he's not allowed to take her she'll go to a foster home—probably a white foster home and not on the reservation."

"Surely they'll see that it will be better for her to go where she has a connection, so surely she'll go to Gage," Cap said. "We can help him work out the child care issues. Did he say anything about taking time off when she comes?"

"Yes, when she comes," Roy repeated. "He said they want to wait until this—the person who did this—is caught, since she's threatened Johnny, too. I guess nobody wants her to feel like she's going from the frying pan into the fire."

"_She_?" Mike asked. "Gage is being threatened by a _woman_?" Roy had already said that, and so had the FBI agent, but somehow Mike had missed that detail.

Before Roy could answer, Cap interrupted with another question. "Those FBI people said that Gage had an idea of who it was. Did he tell you?"

"Yeah, it was a girl he used to date. She had kind of a funny name, like a Greek goddess. Athena, I think he said."

"Athena _Clinton_?" Chet asked.

"Yeah, that was the name."

"Whew! That woman was _weird_! I went on a couple of double dates with them. But that was what—three years ago? Why is she only doing something now if she was going to?"

"I don't know. But Johnny said that she's the only person in LA that he ever told that he'd fathered a child in high school."

"What?" Marco asked. "You said he didn't know about the kid until now!"

"Well, he sort of did. Sixteen-year-olds shouldn't be having babies. They don't know how to act with them. The girl was mad at Johnny when the baby was born and told him the baby was stillborn. By the time she was ready to tell him the truth he had left the reservation—really over that. You asked one time, Chet, why he left. Well, that was why—or part of why."

"I guess I did ask him about that, and I guess if it was something like that it _would_ have made him uncomfortable when I asked. Anyway, do you guys remember when we had collected stamps for a barbecue and Gage spent the stamps on baby things for a baby he delivered?"

"Yeah," Marco said, "The next day he brought a brand new barbecue in the box and dropped it off for B-shift. All he told them was that it was something A-shift had been saving up for."

"I remember that," Roy said. "And he also gave us the TV out of his apartment when there was a mix-up on the size of the one we bought and the guy Johnny bought it from wouldn't take it back."

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd like to do something for that little girl when she comes," Cap said. "I think that's what you were getting at, Kelly, right?"

"Yeah, Cap, I was. I doubt she'll be coming with much, coming from the reservation, and Johnny sure doesn't have anything in his apartment for a kid."

"We could pitch in and buy at least a bed and a dresser for her," Marco said, "and maybe a few toys and hair ribbons or things like that just to make her feel welcome."

Now that is an excellent idea, guys," Cap replied. "I'll check with—" The klaxons sounded, sending the squad on another run. Cap finished his sentence as he and Roy were heading for the bay, looking over his shoulder at the rest of his men as he spoke. "I'll check with the other shifts and see if they want to get in on it."

"Did you tell them?" Johnny asked after they left the scene, a small child having been freed from a stair rail and no one needing to go to the hospital.

"Yeah."

"And?"

"And what?"

"Do they think…do they…"

"They want to pitch in and buy…" Roy paused. "Buy gifts for Kimberly to make her feel welcome."

Johnny's eyes opened wide. "Really?" he asked, relief and gratitude all over his face.

"Really, Junior."

"Whose idea was it, yours or Cap's?"

Roy smiled. "Believe it or not it was Chet's."

"Chet's! Well, I never woulda guessed that!" Johnny smiled in return. He was immeasurably relieved that his crewmates, on finding out that he had fathered a child in high school, did not seem to put a new an inappropriate interpretation on his ever-present efforts for dates, nor did they make any racial remarks. But it could be that they did both and Roy didn't report it—he wouldn't. Maybe Roy had done it himself out of his hearing. He wanted to ask, but couldn't.

When they got back to the station, both of them went into the office. Roy got out the log book. "Can you handle the log, Roy?" Johnny asked. "I'm not done with my phone calls."

"Sure, Johnny. You go ahead and do whatever you need to do."

Johnny dialed the number he'd gotten earlier from information. He had tried it before, but no one answered and then the tones went off. Now a man's voice answered. "Hello?"

"Hello, am I speaking with Mr. Frank Trent?"

"Speaking."

"This is John Gage." Even Roy from across the room could hear the eruption that occurred on the other end of the line when Johnny said his name. He smiled, imagining the excitement his partner was producing by for all intents and purposes returning from the dead.

Johnny didn't speak again for a time, and Roy wondered what happened. Finally, Johnny said, "I'll wait if I can. I'm calling from the fire station. If I hang up it means we got a run, and I promise I'll call back." Then he turned to Roy. "This may take a little while," he said.

"What's going on?"

"That was Mr. Trent, the ranch owner. They're going to find my mom."

As Johnny feared, a run made him have to hang up before anyone came back to the phone. The entire station was called to his run, and it ended up being a very difficult one involving three eighteen-year-old boys who had tried to take advantage of the high winds of that day and attempt to use a single hang glider simultaneously, with disastrous results. All three of them were injured, one seriously. And in getting to them Roy was slightly injured—not badly enough to be taken off duty, but badly enough that he had to be checked out and treated at the hospital. It was not a quick, easy treatment, either. Roy had been slammed into the cliff by high winds, and then had slid down, causing his pant legs to ride up and small rocks to imbed themselves into his legs. He had to endure a painful, long debriding. Johnny had to wait and remind himself that Roy had listened to him and been sympathetic and he needed to show patience and sympathy in return but his heart was back at the station trying his phone call again. Because the call was long distance and the outcome uncertain, he knew he would not be allowed to place it at the hospital.

After what felt like hours, and was in fact an hour and a half, Roy finally was ready to go. A part of him wanted to tease Johnny, to try to lighten the mood by saying something about his lack of sympathy brought on by his overwhelming desire to get back to the station for a phone call. Chet, of course, would have done that very thing without thinking, and Roy would have if it was some girl Johnny was trying to get in touch with, but this was different. Johnny wanted to get back so he could contact his mother having learned earlier that day that his mother had thought he was dead for the past ten years. Roy realized that Johnny was sincerely struggling with it and teasing him was out of the question. And Johnny had not been without sympathy, staying with him in the treatment room and wincing along with him as his treatment progressed. He chose a different tack. "Well, Partner, I guess that cliff could have chosen better timing if it wanted to eat my legs."

"I guess so." Johnny gave him a half smile.

"Do you want to drive? My legs don't feel up to it. I doubt they will for the rest of the shift, really."

"Sure, Pally."

"I'm sorry this happened. I sure wouldn't have picked this time to be hurt if I could have helped it."

"You wouldn't pick _any_ time to be hurt. I'm not upset with you, Roy. Maybe those stupid kids who didn't even try to be safe, but not you."

Roy understood why one of Johnny's dates once criticized him for driving "too abruptly." Even though Johnny complained to him about it later, she was exactly right, and that was one of the reasons he didn't like Johnny to drive the squad. It wasn't that he thought Johnny would drive unsafely or that he would in any way damage the squad, but if Johnny drove he would have to ride with him.

"Roy, are you sure you're okay to work?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, why?"

"You've got your eyes closed."

"So your driving doesn't make me sick."

"Oh. Sorry, Pally." Johnny slowed down, making the ride back to the station even longer. Roy fought the urge to sigh, realizing that with all Johnny had going on right now, slowing down was a sacrifice, so complaining wasn't going to be allowed.

When they arrived back at the station, though it was two in the afternoon and neither of them had eaten, neither of them wanted to. Roy wanted to lay down until his legs felt better, and did, on the couch, to give Johnny privacy in the dorm for his phone call. He stretched out and elevated his legs on the arm, and even Henry moved over for him.

"Are you okay, Pal?"

Roy looked up. "Yeah, Cap. My legs are really stinging, but I can walk, and I can still work. Brackett released me to work."

"Are you sure? There's still a lot of the shift left to go."

"I'm sure."

"Did Brackett give you anything for the pain?

Roy smirked. "Yeah, aspirin. It probably would have helped, but I haven't eaten and I let Johnny drive back here."

Chet laughed. "A little queasy are ya, Pal?"

At that moment Johnny came out of the dorm. Chet turned to him. "Hey, Gage, you need to cool it with your driving before you have Roy perfuming the squad with whatever is in his stomach."

Johnny barely looked at him. He glanced at the couch and saw that Roy was taking the whole thing and walked to a chair and sat down without a word. His head dropped forward into his closed hand.

"Gage?" Marco asked, remembering the events of the morning and the story Roy had told them earlier. "Is everything okay?"

"It's no good. I'm not going to be able to talk to her," he said sadly.

"What?" Chet exploded. "You just find out you've got a kid and you're worried about talking to _some chick_?" Johnny looked at him, but didn't speak. Chet, with a sudden realization, changed his tune. "Unless that's…who you're talking about."

Johnny drew in a deep breath. "Oh, I know what you're all thinking!" He suddenly exploded. "You're thinking that I've got no self control, you're wondering about how often I strike out with the chicks I date and you're wondering how I'm actually treating them—and you're thinking that since Kimberly was born on the reservation that this is all because I'm an Indian!"

Everyone stared at Johnny.

"Nice to know what we're all thinking!" Mike said sarcastically.

Roy sat up. "Johnny," he said, "Nobody's said anything like that."

Cap stood up and walked across the floor to stand in front of Johnny. "Gage," he said, "an accusation is not the best way to ask a question. But since I know you've been thrown for a loop today I'm going to answer your question as best I can. The worst case scenario, which I highly doubt, is that some of us have been thinking along those lines. But since I've not seen any real racism on this shift ever, and since I doubt you're the only man in this station who has the possibility of just such a surprise as the one you got today, I doubt that anybody is. But even if anybody was, this isn't about you anyway. It's about a little girl who's had something very bad happen to her. I know you well enough to know that you're going to give everything you have to do what's right by her, and our part in this is to make sure she feels—make sure she _knows_—that she's every bit as much a part of the station 51 family as Roy's kids or mine."

Johnny looked up at his captain, and then looked away. "Thanks, Cap. I'm sorry, guys," he said softly. He stood up to go back to the dorm, but was interrupted by Marco's voice.

"So her name is Kimberly?"

Johnny turned back and sat back down, a half smile forming on his face. "Yeah," he said. "Kimberly Jean."

"That—that was your mother you were talking about not being able to talk to, right?" Roy asked.

"Yeah. Mr. Trent said that my stepfather is very sick with advanced liver disease. He was expected to have died a week or so ago, but he's still hanging on, and now that he knows about me…" He trailed off, then started again. "So mom can't leave him to come to the Trents to talk on the phone. I _am_ going to have to take emergency leave starting as soon as this shift is over, Cap. I'm going to have to go out there. There's nobody who can bring Kimberly to me, anyway."

"Is that where Kimberly is staying? With your parents?" Hank asked.

"No. Well, actually the Trents don't know who she's staying with. They're guessing she's still staying with Patty's mother, but if she is, Kimberly's taking care of her, and not the other way around. I need to get out there as soon as I can, for her _and_ for my stepfather."

"Now that your stepfather knows about you? What do you mean by that?" Marco asked. "Did he not know about Kimberly?"

Johnny looked at Roy.

"I uh…didn't tell them that part. It just seemed so sordid that I figured you'd rather me not tell it."

"I see." Johnny stood up and started pacing. "Well what Roy didn't tell you is that my stepbrother, who I was once as close with as I am with Roy—I found out today that he wasn't trying to help me when he helped me run away when I was seventeen years old. He just wanted to get me out of the way so he could have Patty—Kimberly's mother. He told the rest of my family—he told them I was dead!" He stopped, swallowed a couple times in the silence that followed, and then added. "And he told me…and told me again and again in letters afterward…that everyone was mad at me for…for what I thought was my fault. The truth was that everyone had found out what really happened, and it was never as bad as I was told anyway, but Ellis was keeping me away! Even after they split up he kept me away because he knew what would happen if the family found out what kind of liar he was! I wonder how he's getting along with them _now!_"

At last Johnny ran out of words and sat back down with his head in his hands. The others came to him, and put a hand on his shoulder or back, murmuring encouragements as best they could.


	7. Chapter 7

Author's note: Thanks to everyone who took the time to review my story. I've allowed a couple of guest reviews to remain even though they weren't positive because I don't want to be thin-skinned. Neither review was abusive. The reviewers did not attack me or anything I was trying to say, just told me what they thought the problems were with my writing. That's fine. I disagreed about the flashback, but I'm not surprised somebody thought it. It would just take WAY too much work to rewrite it another way, and other people didn't seem to think it was that bad, so I left it alone. The other one, somewhere in chapter 1 or 2, in I actually did fix.

**Second author's note: The people have spoken! Readers seemed to be tracking with me and enjoying the story until I put this chapter up. I guess must have kind of "jumped the shark." Thank you for letting me know kindly! You have no idea how much I appreciate that! That, I am guessing, is a real value of this kind of writing. I can find out quickly just where I've messed up, and can fix it. If it wasn't for people's earlier kind reviews, I might have simply given up and decided my story was "dumb." But people seemed to be liking it before, so I have the idea it is salvageable. I have reworked this chapter and taken out a whole sub-plot that didn't seem to be working for the readers and moved in a whole different direction. Hopefully it will be a little better now. :)**

Also, and this wasn't due to a guest review, but a very kind and supportive PM that also told me that some of the details of the flashback were incorrect, I have rewritten a small, inconsequential part of chapter 5.

As always, I don't own these guys & don't make any money off of them. I'm just having fun sharing my imagination and seeing what people think.

A few minutes before seven the next morning, Johnny and Roy were just done delivering a patient, a victim of an early morning traffic accident, to Rampart, when they were met in the hallway of the Emergency department by the two FBI agents.

"Mr. Gage," the man said. "Your dispatch told us we could find you here. There's been some new developments. Would you like to talk here or back at your station?"

Johnny thought for a minute. "Let's go in the lounge. At this time of the morning nobody else is there. Oh, and Roy can come too. I've told him everything."

Both agents nodded toward Roy and they all went into the lounge.

"Mr. Gage," Mr. Harding began. "First let me tell you that your hunch seems to have been correct. Two hours ago we picked up Athena Clinton at LAX getting off a flight from Rapid City, South Dakota. She has confessed to the murder of Patricia Two Elk, and to threatening you."

"Did she say why she did it?" Roy asked.

"Not really. You need to understand, Ms. Clinton is in a somewhat fragile mental state. But we have done some legwork of our own in an attempt to find the motive, and we believe we have found it. "

"Okay, what?" Johnny asked.

It was the female agent, Ms. Warner, who actually told him the story. "We started from where you said you had last seen Ms. Clinton, at Harbor General Hospital two days after Thanksgiving, 1974, and that the next day you found that she had been admitted to a treatment center, but were not told where. Well, we found out where. It wasn't a drug rehabilitation center, as you seemed to believe, but a psychiatric center. You may be an excellent paramedic, but you were completely wrong in your diagnosis of what was wrong with your former girlfriend. She wasn't _on_ drugs, she was _off_ them. She had a history of paranoid schizophrenia, and had been taking some powerful anti-psychotic drugs, which she had stopped, cold turkey, some six weeks before."

"I had no idea!" Johnny gasped.

"She _did _tell us the reason she stopped taking them." Ms. Warner continued, taking no notice of Johnny's reaction.

"And that was…" Johnny prompted.

"She stopped taking her meds when you and she first were…intimate."

Johnny looked confused. "But...but..." he stammered. "We nev..." he trailed off, not wanting to finish the sentence.

"Ah. Not surpising. Apparently she had a false pregnancy while she was in the mental hospital. She wanted a child very badly to replace the baby she had lost. Her mother told us that was all she wanted out of you, the only reason she ever dated anybody.

Johnny winced, and nodded. He could see it, now that he was told about it. Her very oddness which he had thought was creativity screamed mental illness to him now, and he could see that much of her behavior had reflected that, and not drugs he had supposed. And the "surprise" she had had for him must have been the beginning of her believing that she was pregnant when she wasn't.

Ms. Warner continued relentlessly. "Apparently, this false pregnancy continued for two years while she was committed to a mental institution. She wasn't released until she was able to realize that she wasn't and never had been. This realization came with a profound anger toward you, as though you had denied her what she wanted or taken it away from her. Somehow her doctors didn't realize how dangerous this anger made her, and she was released anyway, and helped to get a job and an apartment. The apartment, very purposefully on her part, was located only three blocks from your fire station. She has been stalking you for six months. During this time her co-workers say that she rarely spent any money, even going hungry, as she was saving up for something, apparently a round trip plane ticket to Rapid City."

Johnny closed his eyes painfully and ran a hand through his hair. "I never saw her. How could she have been stalking me?"

The other agent chimed in. "We said she was crazy. We didn't say she wasn't smart."

"I guess since Athena's been caught that means you'll be leaving for South Dakota right away?" Roy asked. "Would you like me to take you to the airport when you go and pick you and Kimberly up when you get back?"

Johnny looked at Roy with gratitude. He hadn't thought of that. "Yeah, if you'll do that for me, I'd appreciate it. I'll get you the Trent's phone number in case anything comes up. It's who my mother works for, or who she _was _working for, and the only number where I will be able to be reached while I'm gone."

"I see. This is going to cost you an awful lot, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it is, first for the airline ticket, and then you can't fly to the reservation. I'll have to rent a car in Rapid City. Thanks for offering the ride. That'll save me the cost of an airline ticket."

They headed for the locker room so they could get out of their bunker pants and into their uniforms before their shift ended in about half an hour. Then Roy walked to the kitchen, and John to the dorm, making a beeline for the phone. First he called the airport to arrange for a flight. He bought a round trip ticket and a second one-way child's fare for the return trip, leaving the date open since he didn't know what to expect. He barely blinked at the total fare, though it was more than he'd hoped. He knew it would be expensive, and he wasn't used to flying. He hung up and breathed deeply, exhaling slowly and trying to relax. To his surprise and consternation he found himself near tears at the thought that the child's fare for the return trip was the first gift he'd ever bought his daughter.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's note: I'm back! It's been a little while since I posted. I hope there are people still with me. I was enjoying Christmas too much to take time out and post for one thing, and for another, this has become a bigger project than I was anticipating. I had already written the story, but now I have to re-write parts of the chapters. My own fault: I really knew the sub-plot people objected to was problematic, but I couldn't think of another way to give Athena a motive for doing what she did. But you guys motivated me to do what I thought I couldn't-I found another way, and it was less hard than I though it would be. So, if you haven't read my re-write, go back and re-read chapter 7 before you read this chapter. I changed it.**

**By the way, I hope everyone out there had as great of a Christmas as I did!**

No one met Johnny at the airport in Rapid City, nor did he expect anyone to. It was still a long way to Pine Ridge, and he didn't know whether or not the Trents had told anyone he was coming. He headed to the car rental pavilion, wishing that he could rent a Land Rover. Actually, he wished he didn't have to rent a car at all. Not only did it eat up even more of his money, but he didn't really want to show up on the rez in a new-looking vehicle that would stick out like a sore thumb. He chose the least expensive looking car he could find, which helped a little on both counts, and set out.

Less than two hours later he was pulling to a stop in front of the home he had abandoned more than ten years before. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, finding himself suddenly shy. He climbed out slowly and walked to the door. It opened before he could knock, revealing his mother, older and grayer than she had been before, but her face aglow with amazed joy. "Johnny!" She yelled and threw her arms around him. Johnny reciprocated the hug and held her while she began to cry and speak softly in Lakota.

"Mom," he said, his voice full of emotion, "I'm sorry."

Betty pulled away from him and looked up into his face. "Given what I've been told by—let's see—Gwen Two Elk, Wilbur White Owl, Frank Trent, and the missionary Johnsons, I'd say the last ten years is pretty much Ellis' fault, not yours. Anyway, I'm just glad you're here now. Oh, I can't tell you how glad!"

"I could have written directly to you, and not just to Ellis."

"You wrote to Ellis?"

"Several times. He told me every time that you were still mad."

"That snake! I wasn't mad at you from the time Wilbur White Owl came over that same day and told us you'd tried to sweat. Ellis was at Patty's funeral, but several people let him know he wasn't welcome!"

"Well, I don't want to talk about him if you don't mind. Mr. Trent said that Dad was sick?"

"Yes." Betty dropped her eyes sadly. "He had cirrhosis, and now it's liver cancer. He's had it for about four years now, and he's not going to last much longer. We really didn't expect him to last until now, but then he heard that you were alive. He's only been hanging on, hoping you would come."

Johnny shook his head. "Oh, no!" he said softly. "Is he in the hospital?"

"No, he's here. At this point there's nothing the hospital can do for him."

"He's here?"

"Come on in. I'll take you to him."

Johnny followed his mother into his childhood home and to his parents' bedroom. When he saw his stepfather, he winced, remembering the robust man he had last seen on his seventeenth birthday. The man in the bed barely looked like that man, and it was obvious that he would not be alive much longer.

"Leonard," Betty started, "You'll never guess who's here. It's Johnny."

"Johnny?" The older man rolled his head toward the door.

"Hi, Dad."

"Johnny…I'm s—sorry. I beat you. Then you were gone. Ellis said you drowned yourself. I've been sorry ever since. F—forgive me?"

Sorry ever since. Sorry enough to drink himself into this state, Johnny realized, with fresh anger toward Ellis. This was Ellis' own father! "Of course I forgive you Dad. At the time I felt like I deserved it. I never was really upset with you about it. I didn't know how much Ellis had lied to us all until yesterday morning, and even then I wasn't mad at you—only at him. I'm just sorry I didn't find out sooner, and that I wasn't here. Like I told mom, I could have written you directly. I probably should have seen the signs and not trusted Ellis."

Johnny stopped. There were tears in his stepfather's eyes. He knelt by the bed and took his Leonard's hand. "It's over now. I'm here now, and I'm not going anywhere."

"You're not? They told me you were some special kind of fireman in Los Angeles."

"Yes, but I'm taking some time off to be with you."

Johnny sat with his stepfather until he knew the older man was asleep. He was anxious to ask about Kimberly, but he knew that would come. His stepfather was the only father he had ever known, and the paramedic in him knew that the man could not live much longer. Just before Leonard fell asleep, he spoke again.

"Johnny?"

"Yeah, Dad?"

"Kimberly was very close to her mother."

Johnny closed his eyes painfully, and then reopened them.

"There's something that—that the two of them shared that you won't like."

"What's that?"

"Don't take it away from her, even though you won't like it."

"I won't, I promise. But what is it?"

But Leonard was asleep and did not answer.

Later, sitting with his mother on the dilapidated couch in the front room, he was finally able to ask about Kimberly. "How's she doing with all this?"

"She's—she's holding up. It probably hasn't really hit her yet. I think the idea of going to live with you is helping with that. She seems to think you are going to take her to some sort of wonderland and that you are going to be some sort of super-dad. She's really excited because from the time she heard that Ellis was not her father, she refused to believe that you were dead and prayed every day for you to be alive. No one encouraged her in this—in fact, a lot of people discouraged her, but she kept on, never giving up. Right now that seems to be what's in her head more than anything else. I think it's helping her to not focus on what happened, but I'm afraid she's going to be in for a let-down when she discovers you're only human after all."

Johnny smiled. "No pressure, huh?"

Betty smiled back, the somber mood broken. "Now there it is!"

"There what is?"

Betty stood up and stepped in front of him, kissing him on the forehead. "That wonderful, lopsided smile. I can't tell you how much I missed it. I had lost it twice—first your father, then you."

Johnny blushed. "I'm back now, mom. I'm not going to live here, I don't think—I have a life in Los Angeles that I really like and don't want to leave. But I promise you, I will not stay away again. From now on, you and I will be a part of one another's lives."

"Thank you, Johnny."

"So where is Kimberly now? Who is she staying with? Mrs. Two Elk?"

"No. Gwen's taking this thing very hard, and her physical condition is, well, it's not that good. She's been staying with her brother, trying to get herself together."

"So where is Kimberly?"

Betty sighed, and Johnny could see that she didn't really like the answer she was going to have to give. "With the Johnsons."

"Who are the Johnsons?" Obviously they were somebody his mother didn't think much of, but he wasn't familiar with anyone on the reservation with that name.

"Christian missionaries," she said, her face curled in disgust. "I'm sorry; there was no one else to take her."

"Oh." Johnny replied, squirming with the same discomfort he had felt on the run with the preacher's wife. Well, there was no getting around it. He would have to go to the missionaries' house to fetch his daughter. "Are they expecting me?"

"They have a phone, so if the Trents knew you were coming they probably know."

"I told them I was coming, but I didn't call them back with my definite plans, since I wasn't going there. It's kind of late to go tonight, I think."

"Yeah. It's after ten. Kimberly's probably asleep, and you're probably exhausted from all that travel. You can go in the morning."

"Won't that be a school day? Or has she not gone back to school yet?"

"I don't know if she's gone back or not, but Kimberly goes to the mission school, right next to the Johnson's house."

"Oh." Worse and worse. Oh, well, how bad could it be? He could go for a little while and it would be worth it to finally meet his daughter. And he didn't have anything to worry about with her. Hadn't his mother just told him that Kimberly had been praying for him? If she could go to the mission school and still pray to the spirits, Johnny could soon go back to what was comfortable for him.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Johnny hoped to talk to his stepfather again before heading out to meet his daughter, but Leonard did not wake up the next morning. He was breathing, but not awake. Johnny did take his pulse and check his respirations, very much impressing his mother. She smiled. "You do that just like a nurse. Is that because of the special work you do at your job?"

"Yeah, I do this at work. Listen, he's slipped into a coma. He should be in the hospital."

"No. He made me promise that he could spend his last days at home. I'm really not surprised at this—he really was just holding on until he could hear from you."

Johnny sat down in the chair in the bedroom and ran his hands through his hair, fighting tears. It was a couple minutes before he could speak, and when he did, it wasn't about his stepfather.

"Tell me about Kimberly, Mom. What is she like?"

Betty smiled. "She sings. She has the most beautiful voice I've ever heard in a child. She's tall for her age, and slender, like you, and she smiles like you—like your father. She is smart and eager to please. But she can be really stubborn when she wants to be. And sometimes she misunderstands things when she takes them more literally than you mean them."

"Stubborn. Got a temper?"

"Hmm…not really. She doesn't seem to get mad easily. She acts hurt rather than angry if she doesn't like something. As for her stubbornness, well, if you push her and she doesn't want pushed, you find out she's practically push proof."

Johnny smiled a little at his mother's wording, remembering that he had once described a visitor to the fire station as "brief proof," meaning he wouldn't listen if anyone tried to brief him on what he was and was not allowed to do. Then he glanced toward his stepfather. "I think he's stable for now. Why don't you tell me where that missionary's house is and I'll go and see if I can see Kimberly. I won't leave, though, until after…"

Betty nodded, and gave him directions.

Johnny listened and realized that the missionary's house was actually nearer than the Trents', which was a little surprising. "You say they have a phone? I wonder if they mind if I use it, if I pay for the call. I need to call my captain and tell him I may be here a little longer that I thought." He would stay, he decided, until his father passed. And then it occurred to him that staying would mean another difficult funeral for Kimberly. But not so difficult as the first one. Suddenly his mind was flooded with a horrible mental picture of his ten-year-old daughter in the next room listening while her mother was strangled to death, and of her coming out of the room later to find her. Johnny realized that since Kimberly's grandmother was handicapped, there was no one else in the house who could have done this—it had to have been Kimberly. And it had to have been Kimberly who left the house and ran to a neighbor to get help. And none of it would have happened if he hadn't… at this Johnny couldn't help it anymore. He burst into tears. "Mom, I'm sorry!"

"Sorry for what?" Betty was confused, but she went to him and knelt beside his chair, putting her arms around him. "I'm sorry…" Johnny sobbed, "I'm sorry…that I was ever with…someone…like that!"

"Johnny. Johnny listen to me. Don't be ashamed of what you didn't know. I guess we knew, or we would have if we put it together, that she was or had been a girlfriend of yours, because both Gwen and Kimberly said that she showed Patty a picture of the two of you together, and that's how they first knew you were alive."

Johnny groaned. "I remember that picture. Chet took that picture. It was—it was about three years ago. I haven't seen her since she went berserk and I had to take her to the hospital. I thought she'd OD'ed, but it turned out…"

"It turned out…?" Betty prompted

"I didn't know—I just found out—that she'd been on prescription drugs for—she was crazy, and I never knew! But she stopped taking them, and she just flipped out. How could I have not seen it? How could I have ever _dated_ someone with—with mental problems? People just don't _do_ that!"

"People can hide things like that. Listen, Johnny, what she did was not your fault. You dated a girl for a while, till things weren't right anymore. All right—what's wrong with that? How were you to know she'd wait three years and then commit murder? And even if you did have an inkling she might be dangerous, how could you have ever thought of her going after Patty?"

"As I understand it, she didn't set out to go after Patty. She thought Patty would want to help her go after me. She must have overpowered her before Patty realized what was going to happen if she said no."

"Or else Patty was very brave."

Johnny looked at his mother, his eyes widening with the thought. "No," he said after a pause. "No way. I don't deserve that!"


End file.
